WEBBER'S WHINING IS LOUDER THAN HIS CAR!

There is an interesting contrast this week between two sports and their respective interpretation of the word “team”.

In Formula 1 a team consist of two cars and two drivers who are jointly financed in their pursuits. Behind the drivers is an extended team of mechanics, engineers, technicians and so on whose collective aim is:

1.       To win the constructors World Championship and demonstrate they are the best team, and

2.       To have one of their drivers win the individual Driver’s Championship.

Given the way the points system works of you succeed in goal 1, then there is a good chance that you will achieve Goal 2 and vice versa.

The ultimate responsibility of achieving these goals rests with the Team Manager who deploys his / her resources to the betterment of the team, a significant part of which is paying vast sums of money to the Drivers who risk their lives piloting the state-of-the-art machines around the track under race conditions. This is a VERY BIG business with much at stake for all concerned.

At the British Grand Prix, Australian Red Bull driver, Mark Webber, openly ignored his team’s direct orders which were to not to try and overtake his team mate, Sebastian Vettel, in the closing stages of the race.  In making repeated attempts to pass his team mate he risked a racing incident which would have seen them both out of the race and the chances of achieving Goals 1 and 2 would have been somewhat damaged.

Webber - not happy with being a No.2

Vettel, the current World Champion, is a 24 year old protégé who will, accident permitting, have a long life in F1 and may even emulate the feats of his countryman, Michael Schumacher, and win multiple World titles. Webber is a 34 year old journeyman who has had the amazing opportunity late in his career to drive arguably the best car on the track. The problem is that Webber does not seem to realise, and to be fair his team haven’t helped by telling him directly, that he is the “domestique” of the team and that he will always be required when necessary to play second fiddle to his more able team mate.

Webber is therefore paid a lot of money to drive well and to do what he is told by the team and for him to jeopardise the success of the team, (and his and Vettel’s own safety) by ignoring team instructions beggars’ belief. One can only feel at this twilight stage of his career that he feels this may be his last chance to win a Championship and hence all loyalty and commonsense is thrown out of the window. (Although F1 cars do not actually have windows).

Webber’s elevation to World Championship points scorer over the last few years has coincided with him driving one of the best cars on the grid and hence it is not drawing a long bow to suggest that if he again disrespects the greater good of the team for his own personal ambition he could well find himself relegated down the grid to a lesser rated team next season.

Meanwhile over in France the most watched sports event on the planet is slowly (compared to F1 anyway) meandering its scenic way around the French countryside seemingly taking in every chateau, alp and tourist photo opportunity possible.

On The Tour the whole concept of “team” and the behaviours this inspires could not be more different than that displayed by Webber on Sunday.

A Team’s consist of 9 riders and one of which will always a designated team leader, (their number ends in”1”) and the rest of the team are rather dismissively known as “domestiques” or servants in the English vernacular. The Domestiques job is to do everything possible in their power to ensure that their team leader succeeds in their particular area of strength, whether that is sprinting, climbing or the general classification.

At the end of the Tour all prize money, even the winner’s cheque, is pooled between the team members and therefore there is perfect “goal alignment”, as they say in HR, so that the best outcome for the team is achieved. The winner has even been known to fore go his share of winnings for the domestiques benefit to ensure that he receives the best service possible.



"i know its broken but I can't let the team down!"



Examples of this team camaraderie and sportsmanship would make many other Sports envious and unfortunately put Webbers’ Sunday actions to even more shame:

1.       If your team leader has a “mechanical” or crashes, the other team riders will also stop so that they can pace the leader back to the peloton. They will even when needed give their bike to the team leader and wait for a replacement to arrive before they themselves continue.

2.       In the closing stages, riders such as HTC’s domestique, Mark Renshaw, will lead a train of team mates at breakneck speed at the front of the race and “bury” themselves with the sole aim of catapulting their team leader, Mark Cavendish, out into the bunch sprint at the last moment to win the stage.

3.       Domestiques will spend the day shuttling backwards and forwards between team cars and their team leader collecting and delivering equipment, drinks and food.

4.       Following a crash by the Astana team leader Alexendre Vinokourov on Sunday, his entire team leapt of their own bikes and clambered down a roadside gully in order to carry him back up the slope to the road where unfortunately his injuries were so severe he was forced to abandon the race.

5.       Subsequently In an amazing demonstration of sportsmanship, and conscious of such a bad accident, the whole field slowed and waited for the rescuers to rejoin them.

This un-selfish demonstration of team ethics and integrity in such a professional and tough sport should be universally admired and sadly display the petulant actions of Webber in a very dim light indeed.

Mark Webber would do well to tune in to Eurosport and maybe he may learn something from his many compatriots who are quietly achieving more credibility than he ever could.

RUSTY AUSTRALIA STUMBLE ON

If there were two things that Ricky P desperately needed to get out of their 4^th group game of the Cricket World Cup against Kenya in Bangalore yesterday, it was:

1.       Win toss, bat and give all the top order batsman some quality time in the middle, and

2.       Get some quality, confidence inducing bowling out of Jason Krejza



Krejza - "I'm no clown"

Well “one out of two” isn’t bad, but Krejza’s bowling, and the subsequent lack of a quality spin alternative in the squad, must be surely causing concern for the Coach and Captain. The seam bowling attack, which until now had been having significant success in the tournament, failed to fire with only Brett Lee producing a performance to be content with. The hot-and-cold Johnson and the fire-brand Tait took two wickets between them at an average economy rate of 5.5 runs per over. This is reasonable under normal circumstance but against Kenya, it looks very ordinary.

  As in previous matches, the Australian batting looked efficient against a solid and unspectacular attack and Mr. Cricket announced his arrival with a typical low profile quality innings of 54.

The next challenge for Australia is against unfancied Canada on Wednesday, again in spin-unfriendly Bangalore, and again the result should not be the issue as much the performance. It is essential again that Australia bat first and score a stack of runs but after four matches, containing 32 overs and returning only 2 wickets at 80 runs apiece, Krejza is running out of time to look the real-deal before the pressure cooker of the knock-out phase.

 Australia’s final hit-out for the quarter final seedings against Pakistan on Saturday, in Muralitharan friendly Colombo, may be Krejza’s last chance to impress pre the arrival of the business end of the tournament. If only there was a ready-made back-up at home then the unneeded Callum Ferguson could be “injured” for the benefit of the team and its tournament chances.

In other World Cup news:

1.       The admirable England is still doing their utmost to make all their games a thriller and pump-up otherwise disappointing TV ratings. Although letting the Bangladeshi 9^th wicket partnership score a 50+ run winning partnership may cause come concern for Strauss & Co.

2.       The curse of the power-play continues with India joining the list of teams who are following the inspirational England in using their batting power-play to routinely collapse and slow their run-rate......maybe a plan for Ricky.

“BOWL KREJZA IN THE POWER PLAYS....”

Still tipping the same eight to qualify for the next phase, with Group A playing out to form but Group B means taking a punt on England beating the so far impressive Windies on Thursday.

GRINS WIDER THAN A MITCHELL JOHNSON STOCK-BALL

ICC World Cup Day 15 (only 27 to go....)

Swanny giving the Mitch salute

It was anticipated that with the aloof majesty of the mighty Ganges, the Cricket World Cup would roll relentlessly onward, rolling over the small teams and allowing the heavy weights to keep their chins above water until their seeding deemed them superfluous. With the matches played to date this has very much been the case but the flow has hit some interesting white-water on its journey to the Coast thus earning the tournament some much needed non-sub-continent ratings.

Because just when you thought that Ireland beating England was one of the biggest World Cup upsets of all time, along came South Africa, probably the form team of the tournament so far, who last night in Chennai (“Madras” for the over 40’s) pulled off a choke that even the Great Greg Norman would be proud off. In losing their last 7 wickets for 41 runs they collapsed faster than the Case against Berlusconi will when suitable donations have been offered to all relevant parties.

England, who are single-handedly attempting to make the warm-up group phase watchable, came back from the dead and ended up defending a paltry 171 to win by a mere six runs. As yet there are no rumours as to any possible impropriety surrounding the result however Warnie’s Tweets are currently being reviewed as we go to press.

It was also a match full of records:

·         A World Cup record of 14 players from the one country, namely South Africa (10 on the South African team and 4 on the England team).

·         Most “Morne”s in a team (2)

·         Least impressive player to ever play for England (Michael  Yardy)

·         Best fist-pumping (Me when JP Duminy was cleaned bowled by Jimmy Anderson)

·         Biggest choke in Sport history that didn’t involve either North Sydney Bears or Kevin Keegan.

"I Loved it" declared Keegan 

In other news, in the 2nd Grade pool, Australia have replaced “the Rug” with “Mr. Cricket” and are now taking a big punt that Tait and Johnson don’t have a breakdown (mental and physical respectively) over the next four weeks. Ex-Dutch star paceman Dirk Nannes has been called over from Melbourne as cover.

England’s walking ego, KP is heading home (although there has reportedly been confusion at the airport check-in as to exactly where that is, Natal or Southampton) to have a hernia OP and is being replaced by ex-Ireland star batter, Eoin Morgan.

Although Your Humble Correspondent has previously declared that the first 42 games were mere warm-ups that does not mean to say you can’t have good friendly matches... The only “real game” in the opening phase would be the Windies v. The Bangers which was played the other night. It turned out to be so one-sided the Home fans resorted to throwing in the towel to see if it could be stopped before any more damage had been inflicted. Unfortunately some of the said towels were subsequently found to be wrapped around bricks.

No change to the predictions for the last 8 being:

Ireland, Zim, Bangers, Holland, Kenya and Canada to all miss out.

ENGLAND HUMILIATED: WOT NO INQUEST?

Why is it that when England get trounced at cricket by the O'Brien brothers and their mate who used to play for Middlesex, there are no immediate headlines re Spot-Fixing and Match-throwing??

England are somehow, inexpicably, perceived to be above such shenanigans (which coincidentally sounds very much like an Irish word) and are dismissed by all and sundry to be just crap.

It’s just not fair; please allow the merest suspicion of a betting irregularity to try and hide some of their blushes.

BREAKING NEWS - Shane Watson IS a Cheat!

The evidence supporting the revelation that Shane Watson is a cheat is compelling and is based on the logical progression of events that started in Colombo, Sri Lanka in 2006.

Shane instructs Brad - "On my wink, unleash hell"

In August of that year whilst doing a commentary for South Africa’s Ten Sports, Dean Jones (the former Australian batting star) referred to South African cricketer Hashim Amla as a “terrorist”. The overwhelming evidence for this damming indictment to a potential world audience was that based on the facts that he was both:

 a) Muslim, and

b) had a beard.

Unfortunately for Deano the educated media came out and decided that such a rash assumption based on such flimsy evidence could imply that maybe Dean was more than just a little bit racist.

Obviously the CIA, FBI, Mossad, MI5 and the ILEA immediately contacted Jones for his advance terrorist recognition techniques and it was rumoured that job offers soon followed. Unfortunately for Deano the then Australian Prime Minister and self confessed “cricket-tragic”, John Howard, came out and publicly declared without prior request, that “Dean Jones is not a Racist”. This statement was believed by the Australian public although it was based on even flimsier evidence than Deano’s original character assassination.

Accordingly Deano’s next career step was abruptly curtailed when the World’s anti-terrorist bodies decided that purely un-informed racist guesswork was not their thing (although it was further rumoured that the FBI saw this as enhancing his suitability for a senior role.)

Roll forward to March 2011 and the Australian openers Shane Watson and Brad Haddin are the subject of spot fixing rumours due to their slow run rate against the less than impressive Zimbabwe opening bowling attack and as such the “cheating finger” is currently being pointed sharply at them; funnily enough by the media of India who, coincidentally, I would imagine are both Muslims and have beards.

So where is John Howard now when he is needed (GOD! never thought I’d ever write those words) his mere silence is more than enough evidence to firmly indicate to the World that those two must be so obviously”guilty as charged” that they may as well plead guilty, pack their whites and head of to the IPL, where they will feel more at home.

All this looks very poor for Shane Watson who up until now had had a reasonably unblemished reputation for fair play and hence I break the news to the World that he is by the logical argument presented above, a cheat of the 1^st order.

And Brad? Well unfortunately this is not news at all. Learned scribes before me have well documented Haddin’s cheating capabilities when in February 2009 in a ODI against New Zealand he clearly “cheated” Neil Broom’s wicket by disturbing the stumps with his gloves and claiming the batsman were bowled. Tricky Ricky immediately claimed “victim” status for Brad claiming that calling someone a “cheat”, as Daniel Vettori had correctly done, was a much more heinous crime than actually cheating itself. (Go Ricky! Go Ricky! A career in politics beckons).

Cricket World Cup Predictions (as verified by the Don)

To demonstrate what a complete joke the cricket groups are at the World Cup, my predictions for the Final 8 are as follows. (I’ve run them past both Don King and Mark Waugh’s bookie and we are all in agreement)

 Don King - has confirmed the predictions

Group A

Australia

Pakistan

Sri Lanka

New Zealand

Group B

South Africa

England

India

West Indies

Absolutely 100% predictable by just about anybody 28 days out from when the Group stage will finish.

The elephant in the room being the role of sub-continent bookies. There will be a BIG surprise at some stage though, maybe with England beating Ireland or something.......



Bizarre Cricket Connections No.1 - Nagpur & Melbourne

The current Cricket World Cup and Shane Warne have a lot of things in common. They are not just dour, bloated and un-interesting but also given obsession like coverage by the Australian media, and in particular my good friends at Channel 9.

 Never before has a match been so pointless, aimless and of no real interest to the general public and subsequently given so much TV coverage and column inches than this! (And the Cricket World Cup is pretty un-inspiring as well.)

Whilst we are all no doubt moderately pleased that serial "boy-about-town" Warney has a new love interest the coverage given by the local media is akin to that only reserved for poor unfortunates within the Royal family. The fact that they also both seem to tweet a “blow-by-blow” account of their romance just makes it more bizarre and newsworthy for the Australian media and appalling for the rest of us.

The same media have now finally found some proper news to cover with the Christchurch earthquake and have decided to leave Warney and his erstwhile partner in sleaze, Ricky Nixon, well alone. However I expect a new "twist" in the saga from Shane & Liz soon as they will be "heaps unhappy" that their personal media circus has found a more appropriate interest. (The shame on the faces of some of those very professional reporters who had to high-tail it down from Far-North Queensland to get the exclusive with the guys delivering Warnie's new mattress. Nuala Hafner you have my deepest sympathy).

Warnie’s romance will only be remembered as the story that filled the papers between the Cyclone and the Earthquake and that it was one big hoax being played out by the protagonists for some, as yet undetermined but probably Liz’s fashion label, commercial gain. (Or was that Warne’s ex-missus commercial gain?!)

A rare photo of Shane Warne

The first month of the Cricket World Cup is no different. Too much media hype, too many superlatives being thrown around for no real reason and a generally disinterested audience. Only the games involving the home teams have had crowds exceeding the “very poor” and this tournament will not get remotely interesting until April is well within sight.

Last night the Bangers beat Ireland. Big news for the c.164m Bangladeshis on the planet, (and some spread-betting syndicates), but pretty much no-one else. Of the 42 matches held in the Group phase only 1 will be pivotal as to the composition of the last-eight, namely that between the Windies & the Bangers. The rest are simply mere warm-up games. It’s all a big money making farce (Cricket World Cup not Warney this time) and no doubt the poor people of the host nations will vote with their feet for the meaningless games played between foreign countries....my God...it’s the Commonwealth games all over again!!.....which were last held prior to India in...You guessed it, MELBOURNE.